The BP oil spill is not alone

For some context on the BP oil spill, I highly recommend this analysis from John Broder and Tom Zeller:

The Deepwater Horizon blowout is not unprecedented, nor is it yet among the worst oil accidents in history. ... The ruptured well, currently pouring an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the gulf, could flow for years and still not begin to approach the 36 billion gallons of oil spilled by retreating Iraqi forces when they left Kuwait in 1991. It is not yet close to the magnitude of the Ixtoc I blowout in the Bay of Campeche in Mexico in 1979, which spilled an estimated 140 million gallons of crude before the gusher could be stopped.

And it will have to get much worse before it approaches the impact of the Exxon Valdez accident of 1989, which contaminated 1,300 miles of largely untouched shoreline and killed tens of thousands of seabirds, otters and seals along with 250 eagles and 22 killer whales.

I'd think about this less in terms of the BP spill than in terms of the dangers of relying on oil. As Lisa Margonelli told me yesterday, "every gallon of gasoline contains a tremendous amount of risk we don't account for. The American Lung Association estimated that every gallon of gas costs us 50 cents in the asthma rate for children. You have the greenhouse gas question, leakage, spills, explosion, cancer risk from benzene, economic risk from the volatility of the prices, the military cost, and we do not account for all this."

If the cost of spills like this one is too high to bear, then we have to wean ourselves off of oil, not simply get really upset about this spill. Because there will be more spills. And they will happen in parts of the world that we don't pay much attention to, and that don't have our high safety standards or our ability to rush mitigation measures into place. What we're seeing here is not a horrible disaster (though it is that), but a cost of relying on this particular type of fuel. And it has to be factored into our calculations.

Related

Lisa Margonelli is the director of the New America Foundation's energy program and author of “Oil On the Brain: Petroleum's Long Strange Trip to Your Tank.” Her New York Times op-ed on the cost of an offshore drilling moratorium caught my eye, and so I asked her to expand on her arguments. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Now that a $4 billion plea deal has resolved BP's criminal liability for the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill nearly three years ago, the company will turn its focus to a trial that could potentially cost it billions of dollars more in civil penalties.

Brian Rezny submits: The BP (BP) oil spill has surpassed that of the Exxon Valdez, making it the worst oil spill in US history. At least 22 million gallons of oil have been leaked (the Exxon Valdez spilled 10.8 million gallons). The damage is far reaching – 140 miles of shoreline along Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and 80 miles along Florida’s coast have been blanketed by the spill, according to the Coast Guard.

I’m sorry it happened. I wish it had never happened…and everybody was still at work
A Halliburton Co. worker assigned to monitor a BP Plc well testified at trial that he missed a warning sign of a potential blowout on the Deepwater Horizon rig before the explosion that set off the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

(NEW ORLEANS) — Oil giant BP has agreed to pay a criminal penalty in the billions of dollars for the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a person familiar with the deal said Thursday. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record about the deal, also said two BP PLC employees face manslaughter charges over the death of 11 people in the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that triggered the massive spill.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The state and federal governments have decided not to pursue $92 million in additional damages from Exxon Mobil Corp., citing the recovery of ducks and sea otters in Alaska's Prince William Sound following a devastating oil spill more than two decades ago.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — U.S. officials said Thursday they want tighter safety rules for pipelines carrying crude oil, gasoline and other hazardous liquids after a series of ruptures that included the costliest onshore oil spill in the nation's history in Michigan.The U.S. Department of Transportation proposed expanding pipeline inspection requirements to include rural areas that are currently exempt and for companies to more closely analyze the results of their inspections.